Android push notification - limitations

Hi,
I am quite new in the concept of push notifications, iv'e read a little about the Google Cloud Messaging.
And i want to know about the limitations of this method.
* how many users can receive the same push notification message ?
* what other limitations should i consider while developing an app that receives push notifications ?
* Iv'e told that there is a limitation of how many messages can be stored without collapsing, what is the meaning of that ?

My goal is to develop an android app, which provides the ability for the server to send a real time push notification for a huge number of users (For example: 1 million users).
Is this possible ?

Tim Moores

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posted 6 months ago

I think there's no fundamental limit to how many devices you can send notifications, but you need to send them in batches (of no more than 1000 if memory serves). The GCM example server code shows how to do that.

Make sure you give users a way to opt out of notifications, or at least let them turn off any sound, light and vibrations your app would otherwise use.

Note that you can send messages to the device without the app showing a notification (those are different concepts).

Tim Moores wrote:I think there's no fundamental limit to how many devices you can send notifications, but you need to send them in batches (of no more than 1000 if memory serves). The GCM example server code shows how to do that.

Make sure you give users a way to opt out of notifications, or at least let them turn off any sound, light and vibrations your app would otherwise use.

Note that you can send messages to the device without the app showing a notification (those are different concepts).

Ok, i got it , i can send a message to maximum 1000 devices per SEND_ID. The question now is, if i want to send a message to a larger number of users (for example 50,000) in real-time.
what is the best thing i can do for the shortest latency ?

Ok, if i want to send a message to 50,000 devices (or even more), what is the best thing i can do ?

Tim Moores

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posted 6 months ago

There is no problem with sending any number of messages, it just needs to happen in batches of 1000. If you look at the example server source code I mentioned, you'll see that it sends the message to as many users as there are, without delay, divvied up in batches of 1000.

Ok, got this, with GCM i can send a push notification to unlimited number of devices -
The messages are sent with batches of 1000.
Let's assume,for example, that i want to send a message to 50,000 devices;
* Does this message reach all devices at the same time ?* Does this message reach the devices in real-time ?

Tim Moores

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Posts: 3137

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posted 6 months ago

Does this message reach all devices at the same time ?
Does this message reach the devices in real-time ?

Given the nature of network communication, I think both of these would be extremely hard, if not impossible, to achieve. GCM certainly does not try to achieve either.